Is the Ban on the Pledge of Allegiance From Schools Absurd ?

21012009

When I was a kid we used to recite the “Pledge of Allegiance” at the beginning of school every day. I think in High School we stopped… that was in the 1970’s. We had a policy in our school system that you did not actually have to say the pledge, but you did HAVE TO stand while the school was reciting the pledge. In 2003, a California federal appeals court determined the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional because it violated the separation of church and state with the phrase “One Nation under God”. That decision was the beginning of a ban on the pledge in all states. Is that decision ABSURD?

In my humble and professional opinion, I’m going to have to say I’m undecided. I see a great deal of the world’s problems being caused directly by religions and religious states. And America is the home of Freedom. Not freedom from everything, but certainly freedom from religious or race or age discrimination (in theory moving toward practice). To start the ban on the pledge I think is ABSURD NOT. Lets get this issue on the table and consider it.

The difficult part for me is that the pledge could be changed to eliminate the God reference and then re-instated. I do see the appeal for that idea but in practical terms, that would cause a lot of trouble in the schools where the dogmatic religions groups would force their children to disobey.

So the one person jury at “This is the Law” is out to lunch on this one waiting for a new idea to pop.

Actions

Information

2 responses

There needs to be more debate on this issue. There are several ways this could go. But state sponsored religion is not appropriate. It the terminology in the old Pledge sponsoring religion? That is the debate. Many think not. Many think so. I think this is going to a referendum.

This is an important issue and in a democracy, this is the kind of issue that is difficult to resolve. There are juxtaposed and polarized opinions on this. But I’m glad we are discussing the issue becasue debate is the heart of democracy. Are we going to change the currency? We used to have the phrase “In God we trust” on certain denominations of currency.